Google to supply Bloomberg TV with ads

Google expands its television ad platform with Bloomberg TV

Advertising is perhaps now the key element to Google. One could even make the argument that it’s even more vital to the company now than its core product, search, is. After all, if someone pulled the plug on Google’s AdSense and AdWords revenues, the company would be a shadow of itself. That’s why it continues to diversify its advertising projects.

Television is a particularly important space when it comes to advertising, and today, Google has announced a partnership with Bloomberg TV to supply ads for the channel. This follows deals Google has with NBC Universal (select channels) and Dish Network in the television space…

Google to supply Bloomberg TV with ads

Posted by Stephen Shanklan

Google has found another partner to use its system for supplying television advertising: Bloomberg TV.

The two companies announced the partnership Thursday, touting the ad success measurement abilities that Google has benefited from with its core search-ad business and is emphasizing as a way to get ahead over other ad mechanisms for TV. “We’re pleased to be partnering with Bloomberg Television to continue to make TV advertising more relevant and measurable,” said Mike Steib, director of Google TV ads, in a statement.

Google TV ad technology can tell advertisers which ads the audience is watching second by second. The technology uses data from millions of anonymized set-top boxes, Google said. And as with Google’s search ads, for which advertisers pay only when users click, TV ads incur costs based on impressions actually delivered.

Google is trying to branch out from its dominant business selling ads that appear next to search results. It’s got efforts to penetrate traditional media–radio and print as well as TV–and to compete better in online graphical display ads as well.

Other Google ad partners include NBC Universal and Dish Network.

Advertising Platform Adap.tv Raises Another $13 Million

Advertising platform Adap.tv has closed $13 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Spark Capital, along with Redpoint Ventures and Gemini Israel Fund. As part of the deal, Spark Capital’s Dennis Miller will join the company’s board of directors. Adap.tv’s total funding to date is now $23 million.

Adap.tv makes an ad platform called OneSource that allows online video content owners to access ads from a number of sources using a single interface. The service supports various formats including overlays and pre/post rolls. Partnerships with a large number of major content providers include Metacafe and Blip.tv.

Adap.tv has shifted its focus since we originally introduced them last fall. The service is now primarily an ad network optimization platform, providing access to most of the top ad networks, along with many smaller ones.

Google Trounces Web Video Competitors With 5 Billion Views, Comscore

Google Trounces Web Video Competitors With 5 Billion Views

comScore on Wednesday announced its latest data showing July 2008 Web video views. And although everyone expected Google to beat up on its competitors, the company did so in convincing fashion by serving nearly half of all the videos viewed online during the month.

According to the figures, over 11 billion videos were viewed in July. Of that 11 billion, Google accounted for about 5 billion and its closest competitor, Fox Interactive (headlined by MySpace TV), only managed 445 million views. Microsoft rounded out the top three by serving almost 283 million videos.

comScore also released unique visitor information, which was again topped by Google, which drew 92 million unique viewers in July. Fox Interactive managed almost 55 million viewers, and Yahoo finished third with 32 million unique viewers.

Comscore Says Almost Everyone (75%) in the US Now Watches Video Online

Traffic analysts estimate 5 billion US video views in July for YouTube alone.

Comscore issued their report for July website traffic in the online video sector today and two numbers really stand out. The company estimates that US web users viewed more than 5 billion videos that month and says that 75 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in July. Those are some pretty high numbers, but 3rd party traffic stats always have to be taken with a giant grain of salt. Do you believe that online video is this universal yet?

Interesting stats from the Comscore study include:

• The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.
• 91 million viewers watched 5 billion videos on YouTube.com (54.8 videos per viewer).
• 51.4 million viewers watched 400 million videos on MySpace.com (7.8 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 2.9 minutes.

Press Release

YouTube Draws 5 Billion U.S. Online Video Views in July 2008

 

Americans Watch 558 Million Hours of Online Video During the Month, According to comScore Video Metrix

 

RESTON, VA, September 10, 2008 – comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released July 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, reporting that Americans viewed more than 11.4 billion videos for a total duration of 558 million hours during the month…

Video Ad Companies: People Love Watching Video Ads!

Michael Learmonth | August 18, 2008 2:43 PM

Everyone knows it, so it must be true: Everyone hates pre-roll video ads — the mini-ads that publishers want you to sit through before you actually watch a clip. We bail out on them constantly, and everyone we know does the same.

But video ad network Tremor Media says we and everyone we know are in a small minority. It says only 20% of Web video watchers give up and leave when confronted with the pre-rolls it serves up. Or, as Tremor is putting it in a release later today, 80% watch the ads all the way through.

Tremor says its audience sticks around because it doesn’t serve up crappy use-gen video, and that “audiences are willilng to accept pre-roll advertising in exchange for content they want, on demand.” And Tremor also says that its stuff is so good (it measured 65 million ad impressions across 100 different ad campaigns) that the bail-out rate didn’t change if the ads were 15 or 30 seconds long.

Not to be outdone, Break Media is claiming an even higher “completion rate” — 87% — for its pre-rolls, which includes a whole lot of user-generated video. Break’s sample was a lot smaller than Tremor’s — 5.85 million impresssions. But we’re equally skeptical of both numbers. We’re certainly not anti-advertising, and we will indeed sit through some pre-rolls, when we know were getting good stuff we want to see. But there’s no way we do that 8 out of 10 times.

But regardless of what the number really is, pre-rolls aren’t going away any time soon. Indeed, another video ad network, Brightroll, said last week it had just booked a $1 million pre-roll campaign, and that pre-rolls account for 50% of their business.

What explains their popularity? In part, it’s because advertisers geniunely think they’re the most effective format available. And in part, it’s because pre-rolls look and feel just like the TV ads publishers and advertisers are already comfortable with. Who’s going to come up with a better solution? There’s a big pot of money waiting…

North America TV Shipments Surge 28% Y/Y in Q2’08; Samsung Achieves Record Share

AUSTIN, TEXAS, August 14, 2008—Despite a weaker US economy and rising energy prices that directly impact consumers budgets, North American TV shipments climbed a remarkably strong 26% Q/Q and 28% Y/Y in Q2’08 to more than 9.3M units, according to preliminary results from DisplaySearch’sQuarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report. This Y/Y growth is the strongest since DisplaySearch began tracking TV shipments in 2004. LCD and Plasma TV technologies both posted strong sequential quarterly gains, rising 30% and 35%, respectively. PDP growth in particular was influenced by strong initial shipments of Vizio’s 32” HD PDPs; LCD growth was also very strong at 32”, rising 35% Q/Q.

Some other highlights from Q2’08 include

• LCD TV shipments rose a stronger than expected 52% Y/Y in Q2 to nearly 7.5M units, driving the total TV growth to such strong levels. Much of the growth came from small- to mid-range screen sizes, such as 19”, 22” and 32” where price points are lower and consumers don’t have to stretch budgets as much to afford a new digital flat panel TV.
• PDP shipment growth surged in Q2 by 35% Q/Q and 34% Y/Y as 32” HD shipments were initiated by Vizio into the US market, quickly rising to almost 13% of all PDP shipments for the quarter. 42” PDP shipments also rose in Q2, climbing 86% Q/Q, but 50” PDP shipments were flat Q/Q as LCD proved a tough competitor at 50-54”.
• Overall LCD TV gained share during the quarter, rising from 77.5% to 79.8% unit share, a new high. LCD TV also gained against PDP in the 50-54” size category, rising to a new high of 46.1% with most 52” LCD TVs selling at a substantial premium to comparable PDP models. LCD did drop from 97.7% to 93.6% of shipments at 32” though, as 32” HD PDP entered the size category during the quarter.
• Samsung was the leading brand with total TV shipment share surging to a record 19.1% of all TV unit shipments in North America during the quarter. Samsung continued to have the leading LCD TV unit share in Q2, climbing from 13.5% to 18.3% as their shipments rose 76% Q/Q. Additionally, Samsung overtook Sony for the top LCD TV unit share of the 40”+ category.
• Sony remained #2 in LCD TV, although their share dropped from 13.4% to 11.7%. Despite gaining share in the 32” category, they lost share in the 40”+ space to Samsung. Sony also rose from #3 to #2 in total TV shipments, although unit share fell from 10.6% to 9.4%.
• Panasonic was still the North America market leader in PDP TV at 31.2%, down from 35% in Q1’08 as both Samsung and Vizio posted strong share gains. Panasonic led 50” shipments by a large margin, while barely edging out Samsung for #2 at 42”. Q2’08 also marked the first full quarter of 46” 1080p PDP shipments for Panasonic and easily led all other brands in 1080p PDP shipments.
• Vizio moved up to #2 in PDP, overtaking Samsung, with their share more than doubling to 25.1% on the previously mentioned strong 32” HD PDP shipments. In LCD TV, Vizio fell from #3 to #5 at 7.5% unit share, as intense price competition from top brands at a wide range of retail outlets which pushed them from #2 to #3 in total TV unit share.

More extensive Q2’08 results can be seen in the following tables:

Table 1: Preliminary Q1’08 – Q2’08 NA Flat Panel TV Unit Share and Growth

Rank	Brand	Q1’08 Unit Share	Q2’08 Unit Share	Q/Q Growth	Y/Y Growth
1	Samsung	14.0%	18.9%	75%	147%
2	Sony	11.7%	10.4%	15%	185%
3	Vizio	12.7%	9.5%	-3%	18%
4	LGE	8.5%	8.2%	23%	80%
5	Sharp	8.1%	6.9%	9%	28%
	Other	45.0%	46.1%	32%	22%
	Total	100.0%	100.0%	29%	49%